Television and American Culture This course explores American life in the last seven decades through an analysis of our central medium: television. Spanning a history of television from its origins in radio to today’s digital convergence via YouTube and Netflix, we will consider television's role in both representing and constituting American society through a variety of approaches, including: the economics of the television industry, television's role within American democracy, the formal attributes of various television genres, television as a site of gender and racial identity formation, television's role in everyday life, the medium's technological transformations, and television as a site of global cultural exchange.

Television and American Culture This course explores American life in the last seven decades through an analysis of our central medium: television. Spanning a history of television from its origins in radio to today’s digital convergence via YouTube and Netflix, we will consider television's role in both representing and constituting American society through a variety of approaches, including: the economics of the television industry, television's role within American democracy, the formal attributes of various television genres, television as a site of gender and racial identity formation, television's role in everyday life, the medium's technological transformations, and television as a site of global cultural exchange. Note to students: this course involves substantial streaming of television for assigned viewing.

Faking Reality: Mockumentaries, Hoaxes & Pseudo-docs The line between fiction and nonfiction media has always been blurred, but the rise of reality TV and digital video in the 21st century has expanded both the quantity and scope of works that straddle these categories. In this course we will explore the history, ethics, cultural impacts, and aesthetic possibilities of mockumentaries, hoax media, and other examples of film and television that challenge easy categorization as “truthful” or fictional. We will study a wide range of works, including F is for Fake, The Blair Witch Project, The Office, Borat, American Vandal, and The Rehearsal. The course will culminate in students either producing their own boundary-blurring media project or authoring a critical essay in written or videographic form. (FMMC 101 or 104) 3 hr. lecture / 3 hr. screening.

Videographic Film and Media Studies Digital video technologies now enable film and media critics to “write” with the same materials that constitute their object of study: moving images and sounds. The rise of video essays means rethinking the rhetorical modes traditionally used in critical writing, and incorporating more aesthetic, poetic, and experimental elements alongside explanation and analysis. In this hands-on course (with no previous video editing experience required), we will both study and produce video essays, exploring how such work can produce new knowledge, create an aesthetic impact, and disseminate film & media criticism to a broader audience.

Theories of Popular Culture This writing-intensive course introduces a range of theoretical approaches to study American popular culture, exploring the intersection between everyday life, mass media, and identity and social power. We will consider key theoretical readings and approaches to studying culture, including ideology and hegemony theory, audience studies, subcultural analysis, the politics of taste, and cultural representations of identity. Using these theoretical tools, we will examine a range of popular media and sites of cultural expression, from television to toys, films to music, to understand popular culture as a site of ongoing political and social struggle.

Key Concepts in Film & Media Criticism  This writing-intensive seminar takes a close look at four key theoretical concepts for film & media criticism: textuality, authorship, genre, and narrative. How do we understand the boundaries between any film “text” and its broader intertextual contexts? How does authorship frame our understanding of the style and ethics of any given film? How do genre categories help us make sense of films and media, as well as their cultural contexts? How do films and media tell stories in distinctive and innovative ways? Through theoretical readings and exemplary screenings, we will learn to become sharper critics of films and media.

Watching the Wire: Urban America and Serial Television Frequently hailed as one of television’s great masterpieces, The Wire shines a light on urban decay in 21st-century America, creating a dramatic portrait of Baltimore’s police, drug trade, and other institutions over five serialized seasons. In this course we will watch and discuss this remarkable—and remarkably entertaining—series twenty years after its debut, placing it within the dual contexts of urban American society and television storytelling. This is a time-intensive course (60 hours of TV!), focused on close viewing, critical analysis of race and policing, and research into The Wire’s social contexts, aesthetic practices, and politics of representation.

Jason Mittell

Reviews and ratings for Jason Mittell at Middlebury College.Jason Mittell teaches Television & American Culture, Faking Reality, Videographic Film Studies and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Jason Mittell good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

I would recommend this class to anyone who is interested in film or who needs to cover a regional distribution. I rarely ever worked more than two hours on homework. His grading system can be confusing but is forgiving if you miss some assignments or classes. As long as you take notes and submit five of the short assignments per week, writing the mini essays is pretty easy and fun, and getting an A is not that hard. Really nice professor!

Jason is a really understanding and enthusiastic professor. His grading is different from other courses in that it is largely participating in discussions each week, and the essays are all graded to either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. If you're interested even in the slightest with the TV industry, this would be a great class. 

Good class for learning about American TV history. There are about 4/5 discussion posts every week, with an essay due about every other week. Work balances out as there are no tests, still annoying to write on Saturday nights.